Starfinder Starfinder 2e playtest officially begins

[Velderan]

Nice, appreciate the note. If y'all got an open seat at your play test let me know.

I'll keep you in mind, not sure how many of my regular group will want to try it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

As some others have said (and this is just me talking out of my behind, I haven't even looked at it yet) even if they're trying to make the look-and-feel a bit different, its hard to picture people who just don't like the design premise of PF2e liking this.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

It is explicitly Pathfinder2e in space, so far that they encourage you to mix-and-match between Starfinder and PF.

(though currently everything in the playtest is more powerful than the character options in PF)

 

[Aldarc]

I’m surprised the Mystic can also access the Occult tradition. I recall from the initial debates, including people with Paizo, that the Mystic would be Divine only.

Also, are there any reasons that previously core PHB 1 classes were cut from the new core book?

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Also, are there any reasons that previously core PHB 1 classes were cut from the new core book?

They wanted each class to stand in for one of the attributes, and I guess they were more excited about Witchwarper to represent Int than Mechanic or Technomancer.

They did also say that they want Mechanic to interact with tech gadgets (on the equipment list), but they felt it needed a ton more gadgets. And introducing a ton of gadgets that are open to everyone else as well, I guess requires plenty of balance considerations, but they didn't have to make them use generic items in the first place.

I don't think a space game needs two out of six classes to be actual magicians with spells that have nothing to do with tech, but here we are (rather than getting biohackers or technomancers or precogs).

 

[Weiley31]

Yes Id be crazy enough to combine both Starfinder 2E and Pathfinder 2E since they are legit compatible.

 

[Green Onceler]

Unfortunately, Starfinder arrived too late for Paizo. They had already lost their knack for adventure writing and world building.

The SF1 Core Rulebook was such a promising product for me but the Pact Worlds book, Alien Archive, and all the adventures I read / played were all very disappointing. New rules are not what this game needs to draw me in. With Grimmerspace seemingly dead and no time / inclination to develop my own setting / adventures, Starfinder is finished for me.

 

[Thomas Shey]

On the other hand, I found the setting material I read acceptable (I'm rarely really pumped by game setting material) but the "one leg into 2e and one leg out" approach annoyed heck out of me, so I'm quite interested in at least giving this a look.

 

[Velderan]

We were missing 2 players from our usual Monday PF2e game so I took the opportunity to run the first playtest scenario, Shards of the Glass Planet. I’ll write a bit more later when I get time, but initial thoughts are it was a lot of fun and the system worked great to support a scenario that revolved around exploring an alien world. I will definitely be running the other playtest scenarios for my group.

 

[Velderan]

So here's some notes from my playtest experience:

We played on Foundry VTT using the module Paizo has available for the playtest scenarios. I had 4 players, so that meant I could just run the scenario as designed though it did provide guidance for scaling the encounters for 5 and 6 players. It's worth mentioning for those not familiar that there isn't a Foundry module for the Starfinder 2e rules, so you use the PF2e module and install the SF2e playtest module on top to add in the SF2e specific ancestries, backgrounds, classes, equipment, and so on. This means if you wanted to, you could mix and match SF2e and PF2e material to create whatever you wanted. We went with just using the level 1 iconic pregens to keep it simple. The group we ended up with was the Shirren Mystic, Vesk Soldier, Android Operative, and Human Envoy.

It's hard to say off of 1 2ish hour session whether any of the classes were over/underpowered, mainly because of the dice rolls being what they were.

• The player using the Soldier rolled poorly all night long, but he did soak some damage during the more difficult fight. He actually tends to roll pretty bad in PF2e now that I think about it..
• The Mystic was an effective healer with access to healing spells and their Transfer Vitality action, as well as some ranged attack spells.
• The Operative seemed overpowered, but the player using him also rolled really well all night so I am sure the extra crits made his damage seem better than it probably is over the course of a full campaign. He tends to roll high in PF2e, if we weren't playing on Foundry I'd probably be suspicious of his rolling. lol
• The Envoy had some nice abilities to help increase the damage others could do and increase their AC by 2 with a reaction ability. He seemed the busiest with things to track.

I'll spoiler tag the adventure notes in case anyone plans to play this still.

Spoiler: Shards of the Glass Planet scenario spoilers

The scenario has the players taking part in an exploration mission to a planet that was sealed off because of a shield surrounding it which recently began to crack open. Landing on the planet, the players find no signs of life although there are plenty of signs of life having previously been there. The group meets up with an advance scouting party, who explains some of the points of interest in the area. The group then gets to investigate those points of interest and learn what they can based on some skill checks. The familiar PF2e 4 degrees of success comes into play as the players earn Survey Points based on their success/crit successes. Once they've spent some time exploring, they report back to the scouting party with what they've seen in time. Just as they finish their brief, an event suddenly has an alien appear near them, as well as some basic life forms (birds, insects, etc) and a hostile creature which leads to the first combat. The creature has a mechanic which interacts with some floral hazards in the area so there's a few moving pieces in the fight to keep it interesting. The encounter itself is a moderate one and based on my experience playing PF2e, it felt like one; the group was never in danger but took some damage and was able to test out some abilities without worrying if they wasted a turn.

After that, they were encouraged to make their way to another location to see if they can stop the crumbling shield around the planet from falling apart completely. On the way, they had to deal with a hazard in the form of shards of energy falling from the sky and then were attacked by malfunctioning repair bots that was rated as a low encounter. The group took care of them in 2 rounds, which was good because they had an ability that mimicked the spell Hydraulic Push which seemed potent for a level 1 low encounter. It does say only 1 of the bots will use it per round and only 1 managed to get an attempt off that missed. The adventure then concludes as it just has you narrate the group arriving at their destination and succeeding in their mission. The ending felt very "let's wrap this up, we're pushing 2 hours with this and it's a SFS scenario" but maybe that's the norm for PFS/SFS scenarios.

Overall it was fun and I'll definitely be running more of these scenarios. They seem like good replacements for the usual weekly PF2e AP campaign game if people are missing. The mechanics were familiar, but the vibe felt different enough to feel like a change of pace.

YMMV, IMO, etc